“Pray, madam, where is the third?” asks the old Duchess, looking round.
“Madam!” cries out the other elderly lady, “I leave your Grace to boast of your honesty, which I have no doubt is spotless: but I will thank you not to doubt mine before my own relatives and children!”
“See how she fires up at a word! I am sure, my dear creature, you are quite as honest as most of the company,” says the Duchess.
“Which may not be good enough for her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry and Dover, who, to be sure, might have stayed away in such a case, but it is the best my nephew could get, madam, and his best he has given you. You look astonished, Harry, my dear—and well you may. He is not used to our ways, madam.”
“Madam, he has found an aunt who can teach him our ways, and a great deal more!” cries the Duchess, rapping her fan.
“She will teach him to try and make all his guests welcome, old or young, rich or poor. That is the Virginian way, isn't it, Harry? She will tell him, when Catherine Hyde is angry with his old aunt, that they were friends as girls, and ought not to quarrel now they are old women. And she will not be wrong, will she, Duchess?” And herewith the one dowager made a superb curtsey to the other, and the battle just impending between them passed away.
“Egad, it was like Byng and Galissoniere!” cried Chaplain Sampson, as Harry talked over the night's transactions with his tutor next morning. “No power on earth, I thought, could have prevented those two from going into action!”
“Seventy-fours at least—both of 'em!” laughs Harry.
“But the Baroness declined the battle, and sailed out of fire with inimitable skill.”
“Why should she be afraid? I have heard you say my aunt is as witty as any woman alive, and need fear the tongue of no dowager in England.”